Review by Choice Review
Work is central to American life, providing stimulation and sustenance while simultaneously creating inequality through its structuring. Hatton (Univ. at Buffalo, SUNY), author of Coerced (CH, Sep'20, 58-0290), edits and contributes to this valuable collection exploring the particular condition of labor during and after imprisonment. Though many may be glad for something to temper the endemic boredom of incarceration, prisoners, unlike general workers, are coerced into work. Under reasonable circumstances, someone in a prison work program should be expected to develop new skills for the post-reentry labor market. However, that is not the reality. Low-skill, minimum wage options await. Scholarly chapters offer fresh research on this underexplored topic, such as Amanda Bell Hughett's chapter on North Carolina's use of work to control inmates, Jacqueline Stevens's chapter on how ICE's civil confinement has created a kleptocracy, Caroline Parker's chapter on the exploitation of prisoners in Puerto Rican "therapeutic communities," and Gretchen Purser's analysis of why prison leads to employment failure after reentry. These timely, often polemical studies lead to a dour pronouncement: no institution or system cited is anywhere close to doing it right. Summing Up: Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals. --Robert D. McCrie, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
